A Second Life Sailing & Travel Blog, Documenting the Travels of Cristalle Karami.

Friday, March 6, 2009

The City By the Bay, Part 2

This is a somewhat lengthy series, in part because exploring this area takes a lot of time. If you're going to do it right, that is.

I resumed my exploration by heading back to Moose Beach via the landmark I made where I previously washed up. Last time, I started from New Port, went north through South Channel and North Channel, into Barcola Sound and west toward Bay City's Inner Harbor. I had fallen asleep, however, and beached at Moose Beach. Upon returning, I was directed to an inland landing point back by the street, away from the water.

Moose Beach is an entire sim with no sub-parcels. As such, the entire sim is a rez zone. This is probably a mistake. There isn't much here, although what is here is kind of neat - a small oceanside club/restaurant and a shop or two.

As you can see, the water here is pretty shallow for a good distance out from the land but Tania was able to handle it. I would need to try again with Renaissance just to make sure, since the Ketch keel is so deep.

I decided to continue heading west toward the Inner Harbor, through the Gulf of Lauren and into Daley Bay.

The harbor has a very industrial feel to it, although apparently it doesn't take too long before you can see privately owned land. It's interesting here, as there is a pipe crossing and a pretty cool trawler.

One bad thing about the Harbor is that this would be a natural rez zone, but there aren't any rez zones in here that I could see. Maybe I missed one, but I don't think so.

Another bad thing about it is that you can't get across the western canal to the edge of the Bay City sims. That low bridge holds railroad tracks and is not a draw bridge. Too bad.

I went back out the bay into the Gulf of Lauren, and found another rezzing zone. I have learned Michael Linden's M.O. - look for a rusty buoy by a lonely unmarked pier, and there is probably a rezzing area somewhere nearby. Turn on your view of property lines, and make sure you can see through the water!

To be honest, had I been on my desktop, I probably would never have found it.

While drifting northward, I got an aerial shot of the end of the rail line. There are no signs, no warning, nothing to block access or signal the end of the line as there would be in real life.

It leads me to wonder if Linden Lab intends to extend the railway northward. Probably not; I would imagine that if they make another set of planned mainland sims that they would be near another continent, such as Gaeta or Jeogeot, which could probably use the stimulus and extra sailing water.

To round out today's excursion, I checked out the lovely open water north of Bay City, the Gulf of Lauren. I had to wonder whose wife is the Gulf's namesake. ;) Bay City is also blessed with a healthy amount of open water sims, although not as vast as the Bingo Strait and the Blake Sea. It makes for great sailing and great views.

After heading north to the end-of-world sim edges, I veered east again in the northern sims of the Gulf of Lauren until I could shout, Land Ho!

I came upon Shermerville - the Lindens' first structured community, if I recall correctly. It is suburbia, with a structured grid of streets and walkways. It's not bad as far as I could see, but I didn't get to look very long. I will definitely have to go back.

Sailing is opening up SL for me in ways that it has never been for me. I've spent so much time with my business that I feel that I really lost out on some of the wonder of exploring SL. I have so many places that I need to go and see, and yet in my mind, all I can think about is how much time it all takes, and how little time I have to do much of it. I have a list of places in my head that I need to visit and explore, but the time... gah.

Speaking of which, time is why I have to do a third installment of this series about Bay City. I haven't even touched the canals! Fortunately, the canals are all protected water (they should be, anyway). There should be no obstructions at all, thank God, to sea travel inside the city. We will have to see, of course, and hopefully there are a few rezzing areas inside the city for people to put down their boats. Probably not, but we will find out.